Why does the press insist on reporting on the story of the lead in Flint, Michigan water without mentioning the crucial role that was played by the state takeover of local government? I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that it is virtually unthinkable to think that this would have happened had there been normal local democracy in place. Instead, over the objections of Flint residents, the state has taken over Flint’s government and management. The elected representatives of Flint play virtually no role in the actual management of that city. The result of this, not surprisingly to anyone who understands how important it is to have accountability by the voters, has been a series of disasters. Yet the press rarely mentions this. We need to speak up and respond to the press with outrage when they fail to bring this into their stories. In fact, it is at the center of the problem.
Terry McGinty
Will Democrats speak up about the non-democracy that occurs on their watch?
The state is about to grab democracy from Southbridge and directly take over that town’s schools. The school committee will be ignored and town meeting neutered. And Beacon Hill won’t say a word.
I actually don’t get as worked up as some because this sounds like receivership which frankly some communities seem to need for time to time. I would say that the state takeover IS the centerpiece of much of the coverage I have seen, though granted that might be MSNBC talking.
So it’s not non-democracy occurring on Dems’ watch…
I’m pretty sure that sabutai is talking about things under control of the legislature — the House whose Speaker is now “Speaker for Life, the House with 125 Democrats (at least in name) and 35 Republicans, the Senate with 34 Democrats and 6 Republicans. He is talking about things that we unchanged during the eight years that Democrat Deval Patrick was governor.
This most certainly IS our watch, regardless of the party affiliation of the governor.
The Commissioner is confirmed by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The Board is appointed by the governor. Deval Patrick owns this commissioner, and his decisions.
Follow the money — Democrats had no real problem with privatizing health care, converting to for-profit hospitals at an increasing clip. Why would they oppose privatizing education?
and DESE is to look tough and make the Commonwealth look like it has a real effect on the actual education of kids.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the municipalities being taken over have large populations of poor people. And only a fool or an idiot thinks kids scoring higher on tests will lift them out of poverty.
Last time I checked we here in the Commonwealth were living under a Republican administration run by the Republic Party, not the “Democrat Party”.
Sorry guys, but we own this government.
Tell me what Charlie Baker has done that differs in any substantive way from what Deval Patrick did between 2006 and 2014.
.
Haven’t you favorably cited examples of Patrick proposals that didn’t make it through the General Court? I don’t think Patrick “start[ed] with the premise that people are taxed too much”.
politically incompetent. Sure, he had to work with the legislature. DeLeo sucks, but what about Terry Murray? He was a good campaigner, and an ineffective governor.
Sure, Deval Patrick said he “wanted to invest”. He didn’t do it. Let’s not forget that casino gambling — yet another regressive tax — was championed by Mr. Patrick.
The fact is that no matter what Deval Patrick wanted, the needed investment did not happen on his watch.
If the Speaker of the House want to raise taxes on the wealthy, it would happen. The most that Charlie Baker could do is veto it, and the Democratic supermajority would easily override that veto.
The tax increase on the wealthy needed to enable the desperately needed investments we speak of is blocked by our own “Democratic” legislature.
We own this.
for KNOWINGLY poisoning these poor, black children with foul, leaded water to save money. He should be prosecuted by US Attorney General Lynch to the full extent of the law.
Previous to changing the water supply to the polluted Flint River the city had been drawing glacial pure water
from Lake Huron.
There is a special place in hell waiting for that corrupt, evil bastard !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
its covenant with cities and towns. Costs and responsibilities are shifted to us. Many of us lack the human resources, skills, and knowledge to meet the regulatory and fiscal burdens the Commonwealth passes down to us.
I was at the ratification of my teacher contract (not my home town) and listened to teachers complain about how cheap the Town was on the cost of living increases that were negotiated. As a selectman, I was aware that state aid wasn’t keeping up with local costs, and that the Town, which is already well-paying, was approaching its levy ceiling. My point is, the Town was blamed for actions of the Commonwealth, and to be completely clear, the tax cuts in 1998.
I think we should be MUCH more specific.
The Massachusetts House controls the budget, and Massachusetts Democratic Party has had overwhelming control over the Massachusetts House for generations.
It is the Massachusetts Democratic Party — the elected officials who proudly affiliate with it and use its formal identity — that has broken its covenant. We have been betrayed by our own party. I don’t want to hear hand-waving about why the organization claims innocence — it is the majority political party, it exists, it owns the government, and it has betrayed us.
All this rubbish about what the local party can and cannot do is just that — rubbish. If the current situation truly cannot be changed, then the legal organization should be dissolved and replaced with an entity that does have meaningful influence on the elected officials who use its identity.
Voters have a right to expect elected Democrats to govern like Democrats.
Most recently, and currently, it is Bob DeLeo who is refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy. He is only the most recent betrayer.
It is time to make FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE in Massachusetts elected government.
Full disclosure: I’m the Field Director for the United Independent Party
And that is what my new party and I intend to do. And to be clear, Mark Bail is speaking a truth that many people do not realize is a real issue effecting towns and municipalities all over but especially in Western MA. And it creates this cycle of cynicism where overrides get defeated and people think even their local government is non-responsive, since nobody can pin the blame on the real problem, our regressive tax burden which has to be fundamentally reformed. It all comes back to that. And I do not see any major leader on Beacon Hill with the courage to tell that truth and go out to the public and educate them on that issue.
It’s an uphill battle, but we are betting that voters in this state have noses finely tuned to picking up bullshit and we are just dispensing with that part of the political process. Up front, what does it really cost, how does it benefit the state, and is it worth it? Those are the three questions we should always be asking.
Too many Beacon Hill Democrats, I like to call them DeLeocrats, don’t even bother with asking the first two questions and always answer the third in the affirmative, mainly because it’s worth it to them. Too many Bay State Republicans including our Governor ask the first two questions, and always answer the last one in the negative, unless a contributor like Partners or GE is involved. That’s why the system is broken and why it will require substantial reform and disruption. And I really think the voters are out there and ready for this change.
It seems Reps. would WANT to “bring home the bacon” and throw money at the communities they represent, and then of course take CREDIT for same at election time. My Reps. who are arguably DINOs do in fact do this to some extent.
Where I’m lost is what exactly do you propose that the state party do that it also has the legal authority to do. There is no subcommittee of the DSC that vets elected officials for platform adherence and has the power to veto a nomination decided by a primary, nor do we nominate the Speaker of the House at a statewide convention. I’m frustrated too, but when primaries do occur they are often not successful at which point you have to admit that maybe the district IS getting the representation it wants.
Check it out
My question is what do Tom and CMD, who like to blame the institutional party for our predicament, suggest the institutional party do to fix it.
The time to ask that question was before electing Mr. DeLeo Speaker for Life.
It’s too late now.
I am not aware of an official party position regarding Speaker term limits and given that I’m a DSC member I’m sure I would be aware if there were one. Since we are not, in fact, a one party state a la Communist regimes it is ultimately up to the voters rather than the party machine who gets nominated and elected.
This kind of passive-aggressive “hear no evil, see no evil” posture is what makes the DSC and the Massachusetts Democratic Party such a joke.
Bob DeLeo is a DEMOCRAT. He uses the party logo, the party machinery, and benefits from the party’s dominance.
This response exemplifies what makes the UIP attractive to me.
…of what the MDP should do about it. As a DSC member I really am interested in ideas in this regard.
As I wrote earlier, I fear it’s too late. Based on your own descriptions of what the DSC can and cannot do, it appears to me that the DSC cannot solve this problem. I certainly don’t have any suggestions, and you’ve persuaded me that the DSC is powerless to make any changes anyway.
I voted for the UIP candidate in the last gubernatorial election. I’m giving serious consideration to registering with the UIP now.
Bob DeLeo is a conservative Democrat. Democrat does not and never did equal progressive. We want the party to be more liberal, but that doesn’t mean all Democrats do.
As a one-party state, we have a lot of people who would lean towards, if not belong to, the Republican in other states. We’re a big tent party.
And if not Deleo, then whom? I don’t like the guy’s politics, but he can only be replaced. Which progressive would replace him? I heard the guys in line to replace him are worse. Don’t know if that’s true, but I think, in your frustration, you’re oversimplifying things.
We need to start jailing people. Matt Taibbi wrote a whole book about it, but too many government officials and connected insiders are becoming too big to jail, let alone the banking class. Snyder came into office with an intentional agenda to destroy unions in a state built by labor, selectively destroy local government in black majority cities and replace them with unaccountable technocratic appointees, and ignored months of warnings, pleas, and cries from his citizens about this problem. He should at least be investigated for impeachment over it, it’s hurt far more people than my soon to be former states former Governor did trying to sell a Senate seat. Far more people than John Rowland or John Kitzanbacher who resigned for less, or Gray Davis who was recalled for less. Investigate this guy and see if he or staffers committed crimes and put the criminals in jail. This is not how America is supposed to work.
mismanagement of the city budget by your party members. I suggest that you study up on this case. As the WSJ noted today, this is not a “parable of Republican neglect of a poor black city.” There is plenty of blame to go around, starting with the original democrat hacks who essentially destroyed their own city, then the EPA, the local water quality control group, and yes, then the Governor and his agencies. To single out Governor Snyder as the culprit is absurd. JC, statements such as, “Snyder came into office with an intentional agenda to destroy unions in a state built by labor, selectively destroy local government in black majority cities……”etc. etc.are foolish and empty rhetoric. I expect better of you.
why blame pensions of laborers? I agree with you at the start, but then you lost me.
For example the physical size of Flint is in excess of its needs, much like Detroit.
You can see it on Google Maps. The houses aren’t in rows, there’s a hodgepodge of houses and vacant lots. As a result city services are much too costly. You have to maintain water and sewer lines, patrol by police etc. The solution is that people should be moved and parts of the city shutdown and abandoned. The challenge is how to do that given existing funds and laws.
The financial receivers program (or whatever they call it) came about because there are cities in MI that were in desperate straights and could not get out of it. Here in MA we are at least in a situation where the property values in our toughest cities are held up by the value of the surrounding state. There’s very few vacant buildings in Lawrence, and the population is growing, not shrinking.
Your observation about Lawrence is correct.
Springfield is not so fortunate.
Lots of sub-$50K homes in Springfield, just checked. If I was the state government, I would consider Springfield then the riskiest city in the state (without looking at others, could be wrong) and probably needs more drastic measures than the other gateway cities.
I would say that makes the idea that a casino would fix things even more of a joke.
Springfield has been at the Proposition 2.5 ceiling for, I think, the past 4 years. It’s levy numbers have had the following increases/decreases:
2016: +3.23%
2015: +1.82%
2014: +3.32%
2013: -1.17%
2012: +1.74%
2011: -2.54%
Those are numbers which include new growth. Reductions in tax levy for 2 of the six years, and only 2 years where the levy increase is higher than 3%.
Let’s look at a healthier community like Cambridge over the same period:
2016: +3.80%
2015: +3.93%
2014: +3.66%
2013: +5.97%
2012: +5.33%
2011: +5.69%
See the difference?
Mark Bail has hit the nail on the head: deindustrialization coupled with white flight. The state never helped out, it left cities on their own at a time when those cities were getting hammered. There are no jobs for unskilled workers, and the state’s housing policies are causing unskilled workers to pool in post-industrial cities like Springfield (and Southbridge). Do you know that only 10% of Southbridge’s residents have college degrees, and 19% of Springfield’s residents have them? Cambridge boasts a 74.4% rate; Wellesley has a 85.3% rate. This is not a failure on the part of Springfield schools – people move around, and just 55% of the people living in Springfield were born in Massachusetts. Our state policies are simply encouraging poor uneducated people to live in poor areas and rich educated people to live in rich areas.
The theory behind Proposition 2.5 is that people would seek out cheaper, lower-tax communities – like Springfield, where you can buy a house for $75k and pay $1,425 in property taxes instead of paying $400k for a house in Longmeadow and paying $9,600 in property taxes. In reality, the exact opposite has occurred.
And actually the elected leadership of Flint was looking at a contraction program for quite some time and it’s already the policy of Detroit. I won’t even argue with the fact that the elected leadership in many of the communities that entered receivership was corrupt. But, that’s that corruption didn’t cause the breakdown of these communities but is the result of that. When the bulk of your educated and middle class citizens leave the city, you are left with a spoils system for a political culture.
It’s not unique to Michigan. Gary, IN has had these same issues and I still think one of the best political movies is Street Fight detailing Cory Bookers fight against the Sharpe James machine in Newark. I have issues with how he proceeded to govern, but the incumbent he beat was purely interested in maintaining power rather than policy. And locally we saw this in Lawrence and are seeing it in Springfield. But I am also confident that elected officials wouldn’t have ignored the residents concerns with such blatant disregard as this out of city technocrats who cut the budget without thinking about who it affected. This is modern libertarian/conservative mismanagement at it’s worse. At least the corrupt machines knew they couldn’t serve leaded water to their residents without endangering their careers.
there’s also incompetence and institutional ineffectiveness.
The corruption really reduces confidence though, especially among the voting public that is asked to send additional funds.
I have been listening to the testimony of people – Springfield residents – who are strongly advocating the the MGM Casino be allowed to change its design. They are all lauding the project – nearly every single one of them has hitched their star to the idea that it will make life in the city much, much better, and will bring with it many, many jobs.
If you listen between the lines, you hear people who are desperate. A man dying of dehydration will drink any liquid instead of dying, and that is what is happening here.
You may see it as incompetence of city officials, but in reality it is a lot harder to do nothing and wait for the right thing to come along than it is to do something even if it is the wrong thing.
It sounds to me as though Flint was in receivership because its residents collectively committed the crime of breathing while black.
I’m not sure that the WSJ is the source I’d start with in attempting to understand the roots of this crisis.
More important is the question of what is to be done now and tomorrow.
If there was malfeasance, and it certainly appears that there was, then the perpetrators should be investigated, prosecuted, and punished if convicted — regardless of their party affiliation, gender, or skin color.
The pensions aren’t “inflated”. The word you’re looking for is “underfunded”. Too cheap to pay workers what they’re worth, the local politicians decided to pay them some of that in the future, thinking by then they’d have figured it all out.
Well no surprise, they didn’t put aside the money to keep their promises, and now the pensions are “inflated”. This is akin to me declaring that because my credit card bill is “inflated” I shouldn’t have to pay them, and it’s VISA’s fault that I’m going without dinner tonight.
I am not sure that anyone has a workable solution to handling the management of a de-populated urban area on the scale of Flint or Detroit. They require local services, those services are expensive because of the physical realities of something that was once densely-populated and urban, but no longer is so, and has almost zero tax base.
Within the last few years, you could buy a 3 bedroom house in Flint for less than a new economy car. How can you run local govt off that tax base?
The water situation in Flint shows how this has to be a state, maybe federal, problem and not a local one. Flint had to get off the Detroit system because they didn’t have the money to pay for it; Detroit couldn’t give discounts because it is in exactly the same boat.
So, now, you have Flint off the Detroit system, so Detroit lost the revenue stream completely, and Flint destroyed its own infrastructure, perhaps beyond repair, and thousands or more people have been poisoned. Pretending that these things are purely local concerns is 100% on the executive that is implementing these receiverships in the first place, which means that governor.
many American cities: deindustrialization and white flight. A shrinking population and tax base with a needier population and legacy costs no longer supported by a once vibrant manufacturing sector. As Wikipedia says, “Only 10% of the manufacturing work force from its height remains in Flint.”
Everything stems from this historical fact.
If you can’t pay your own way within reason, how much political power do you get?
If things are a real mess, can legislative (mayor and/or council) action solve the problems, or is the only solution one where an executive with enhanced powers is needed?
Are there any bigger lessons that could be applied in many spots?
Is there any upside we haven’t thought of (Detroit has seen some neat stuff- artists, urban farming, etc.)?
Why are some parts of the country filling up and others emptying out?
Some parts of emptying out because of deindustrialization. Others are filling up because of weather, lower costs of living.
If your municipality is run on particular assumptions that are reasonable until the future arrives, it takes a while 1) to realize that it’s changing 2) to scale back.
Municipalities are also arbitrary creations. Take my town for example. We have only a residential tax base. Very little industry or commercial property. Almost no infrastructure to attract them. There was a decision long before I was born not to introduce sewer. Now, It’s too costly for us, even with grants and loans. And there’s no public water supply. Our town is surrounded by larger towns. We would have been much better off had we remained part of South Hadley. The problem is, we split from them in the 1760s over the siting of a church. Granby is what it is because of a history that none of us bear any responsibility for.
Executive powers eschew politics and democracy. It’s easier to make cuts when you don’t have to be elected. But you can’t cut a city or town to prosperity.
Your first question is inherently anti-democratic. De jure, it’s wrong and probably unconstitutional. De facto, I’d say the ability to pay your way is already happening.
I think that enough people here remember that back in 2004, the City of Springfield was placed under state control with the appointment of a Financial Control Board. At the time, the sentiment on this very website was “serves them right, they voted for corrupt leaders”, when in actuality the reason for the city’s financial situation were far more complex, primarily because of a local inability to raise revenues and a dependence on state aid for 70% of the municipal revenue, state aid that had been stagnant and then cut when the state hit rough fiscal waters.
Since then, the state legislature has been almost 100% disinterested in the plight of its urban centers. The Gateway Initiative is the one lone star on the horizon, but despite several of its urban centers being at the Proposition 2.5 levy ceiling for multiple years, this is not seen as a priority either by the state.
I suppose that this is because of the “out of sight, out of mind” principle that our state enjoys due to its extreme economic segregation and Boston-centric view of the world. Yes, Boston, a world-class city, is doing great! And the areas surrounding Boston are doing great! I encourage people to dig deeper, into communities that have massive concentrated poverty. Try and understand the numbers and the work that we have to do.
I’d love to get a better feel for the politics of that area
jconway@unitedindependent.org
You should at least use something other than “@” to hide from spam bots.
How does the Commonwealth help the Gateway Cities deal with being hollowed out due to long term industrial losses?
* For cities close enough to Boston, doubling down on commuter rail could help, but it’s still hard to imagine Springfield (for example) as a bedroom community. That written, the MBTA needs lots of investment, and it’s hard to argue spending big bucks for a few thousand riders a day from Springfield when the Red, Green, Blue, and Orange are desperate and have much higher ridership.
* Adjust Prop 2.5, so that cities can exceed the 2.5 total levy under certain circumstances (say, for example, the average household property tax, in dollars, is under some threshold). My recollection is that there is at least one Gateway City where property values are so depressed that their total 2.5 percent maximum levy is under their legally obligated school spending requirement (forgive my wording, I’m rushing).
* Figure out what infrastructure will attract middle class jobs at relatively low cost. Yes, this is a funny request on the heels of the GE deal, but hear me out. Maybe it’s super-high speed Internet for small/medium offices. Maybe it’s a tech hub of science/tech that will incubate a dozen startups. I have no idea, but it seems like there should be something here, for at least one city.
* Maybe some kind of a loan forgiveness program? Young college grads are crushed by debt. Maybe if you go work for Gateway City government and graduate from a state school, there is some debt forgiveness. That helps attract young talent to government, and helps make sure those young people have more spending cash, which the local economy desperately needs.
I’m Boston-centric. I don’t have a good feel for what the Gateway Cities need. I’d love to hear from folks like christopher, Rye, and others who may have a better feel. I’m sure there are good cases to be made where the Commonwealth by investing $X in a Gateway City can generate $Y in benefits (or avoided costs), where $Y is more than $X. Because while I don’t mind spending money on the residents of the Commonwealth who need it most, revenue-neutral policies are a heck of a lot easier to move on, at least politically.
and money was freely available… then we should relocate community colleges right into the cities. Move Westfield State right into Springfield. Maybe a UMass satellite. You would be amazed at all the young people in Lowell with both a Middlesex CC campus and UMass Lowell.
Springfield Technical Community College, Western New England University, Springfield College, and American International College. STCC doesn’t seem to be in such a bad neighborhood, but AIC has had problems with stray gunshots hitting buildings.
Holyoke has Holyoke Community College.
…but I have long thought Prop. 2 1/2 was just about the worst law ever passed and wish it were repealed outright.
It is obviously a huge question to answer, “what can the state do to help Gateway Cities”. Someone could do a dissertation on the topic. I’ll do my best to come up with some ideas.
One area – which I won’t explore too much – is that Gateway Cities need help in finding a new purpose. Historically they existed because work and housing was performed centrally. The old Westinghouse factory in Springfield once employed 6,000 people, so it made sense that these people would live nearby at a time when transportation wasn’t very good. That same site will now house a 150-employee railcar assembly factory, and I bet most of those employees will travel to the site via the nearby highway. The old city identity no longer works; many Gateway Cities need a fresh perspective in finding a new identity. Maybe it is as a center of commerce (malls have taken a lot of that away). Maybe it is as a center of business (suburban industrial parks have taken a lot of that away). Maybe the state shouldn’t give (or allow) suburban communities breaks/incentives to build an industrial park, and should instead give breaks to redevelop a downtown?
Beyond that, there are a lot of concrete things that the state could do. The primary affliction of Gateway Cities is the concentrated poverty of its residents. This is the root of all the problems. Concentrated poverty leads to a decreased business climate – Starbucks isn’t going to open a coffee shop in a census tract where the median income is $10k – they’ll go to the tract where the income is $75k and higher. Local businesses also know that you can only sell things to people that have money. Concentrated poverty makes the schools appear bad; it makes the crime appear higher; it makes the city less desirable to live in.
Housing is a huge issue. As merrimackguy pointed out, there are a lot of cheap houses for sale in Springfield – there are currently 111 single-family houses for sale for under $80k. Low property values are a HUGE problem because construction costs are regional, not city-specific. Do you know how much it costs to roof an older house? $20k. So if your house is worth $75k, a new roof suddenly doesn’t make economic sense. That encourages massive disinvestment, and that is specifically what is happening in Springfield. Neighborhoods are slowly rotting away. Based on construction costs for maintenance and repair, Springfield’s housing needs to be worth about double its current value.
Take a look at this property. It is typical of what we see. A 6-bedroom, 2-bath home available for $45k. The house easily needs $100k in work. Recent sales of nearby similar houses haven’t topped $75k in the past year. Does it make sense to buy this house?
So how do we combat this problem? I can think of two things. First, the state could come up with a program to essentially subsidize the rehabilitation of such properties. In fact, one currently exists – the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. It is tailored to Boston, though – to communities that have high housing prices. It puts a 20-year restriction on the property. How about lowering that to just 5 years in cities that have low property values? And how about making the program more accessible to smaller players – from what I understand it is very complex and only the big developers use it.
The other thing I can think of is that we have to make owner-occupying a two-family house more attractive again. Owners are more likely than investors to “overinvest” in a house. Being a landlord is not a good deal anymore. I have heard, far too many times for it to be hyperbole, that housing courts are incredibly pro-tenant. I have heard from more than one credible people that the courts use landlords as a social program – in one instance, a woman who hadn’t paid the rent in months was instructed by a judge to find some code problem with her property because that would allow her to avoid eviction. That needs to be addressed.
In addition, I think that a state program that has incentives for ordinary people to own and occupy two-family houses would be good. Right now a bulk of Springfield’s two-family houses are owned by investors, in many cases from the Boston area (because a $150k investment house seems like a steal when your own house cost $800k). When an owner isn’t present, the property is more likely to become problematic. The owner is less likely to screen tenants, and it is more likely that the property will be used for illegal activities such as drug dealing. Illegal drug sales attract violence, primarily home invasions and shootings, as people fight over the illegal drug trade.
Another problem with housing is that the state concentrates affordable housing in Gateway Cities. This has been raised nationally; in June the Supreme Court ruled that Texas violated the Fair Housing Act by awarding most of its low-income housing tax credits to neighborhoods that were already low-income. T is understandable; the low-income tax credits are used to rehabilitate deteriorated housing, and this housing is usually found in poor neglected areas. This rehabilitation is sorely needed, but going down this path puts a city deeper and deeper into poverty because the owners of the properties are required, by law, to find low-income tenants for their properties. With each new rehab, this increases the amount of perpetually poor people in the city, and makes it that less likely that poor people will be found outside the city, especially when no low-income housing is being funded in wealthier communities. We need to spread this burden around more.
I previously mentioned shortening the low-income restriction to five years; another suggestion would be to create a state housing program that eliminates it entirely in some cases – instead of the state having a goal of “low income” housing, it should have a goal of “economically balanced housing”, which would mean that in cities that have an abundance of low-income residents and a dearth of higher-income residents, the tax credits would also be available to bring in higher-income residents.
A third thing would be to start getting serious about envisioning low-income housing in all communities – stop listening to the excuses like “we can’t put the low-income housing in the suburbs, they don’t have the same social service support network that the cities have”. That is a self-perpetuating excuse. Both state agencies and state-funded agencies are guilty of the mental image that low-income housing and social services belong only in cities, and not suburbs.
Still on the topic of housing, Springfield has been saturated with state-funded group homes. We have all flavors: pre-release inmate group homes, emotionally disturbed teenage boys, drug recovery, mentally disabled, etc. Recently, under Charlie Baker, the state started taking homeless families out of motels and state-funded housing agencies started placing hundreds of homeless families, doubling them up in rental housing. We started to see advertisements for people who wanted to buy large homes so that they could fill them with formerly homeless individuals in a group setting. The agency justified putting the homeless in Springfield because he said that 60% of them were originally from Springfield, ignoring the fact that the other 40% were not. Again, this is a burden that should be shared by all people in this state. It is a clear-cut example of how a state policy is directly making Springfield poorer.
Another area in which the state could have direct influence would be state aid. Yes, the city is functioning on its current funding level, but there is no room to do things that a healthy city would do. When I go to our parks, I see playgrounds that were installed 20+ years ago and are largely broken. Our sidewalks are crumbling; I remember having to buy a bicycle stroller for my child because a regular stroller couldn’t navigate the sidewalk potholes.
So how about a funding circuit-breaker that gives poor communities extra aid each year, bringing them up to the growth level of the median community in the state? For example, from 2015 to 2016, the median tax levy growth in the state was 3.86%. Springfield grew by 3.28%. So how about providing extra aid to get Springfield to the point as if it experienced a 3.86% growth in levy? That would mean an additional $1.01 million in unrestricted state aid for 2016 (and beyond). While that doesn’t seem like much, this is the penalty of being in a low-income, low-growth city, we don’t have that extra room that the top half of the state has. Obviously conditions would need to be placed on this program to prevent communities from pursuing a low-growth strategy at the state’s benefit – maybe limit it to Gateway Cities, and maybe the extra aid could even be reduced when the city experiences higher-than-median growth.
Schools are a hugely problematic issue, and are the main reason that people avoid Gateway Cities. I was looking at Springfield High School data; the data is divided by “cohorts”, meaning groups of students that enter the system together. In Springfield’s five high schools, there are 1,837 students in the 2015 cohort. The state identifies their characteristics. Of the 1,837, 286 (16%) are English Language Learners. 429 (23%) are students with disabilities. 1,643 (89%)are low-income. 1,680 (91%) are “high needs”. Contrast that to a community with “great schools”: Longmeadow. 261 students in the 2015 cohort; 5 are ELL (2%). 50 have disabilities (19%). 28 are low-income (11%). 73 are high needs (28%). If you were to choose a community, would you choose the one with 91% of the students being high-needs, or 28%?
On a final note, removing the levy ceiling would be a good thing. It is really pretty stupid, and only harms low-value cities. The 2.5% limit is still in place, which prevents a city from raising its levy by more than 2.5% per year. Why put an additional cap on, one which gets triggered when the housing market tanks?
I’ve gone on about this enough for now; to summarize, the state goal here should be to try and make Gateway Cities attractive to people with higher incomes in an attempt to balance the economic segregation that our state faces.
Longmeadow is by far the richest community in Western Massachusetts. It overrides and spends more than many other towns. It has spend so much it is flirting with its levy ceiling.
Yes, Longmeadow is the richest community, and the one which most people aspire to live in. When someone asks me “which community has the best schools”, generally the only answer is “Longmeadow”. Schools are primarily what cause younger professionals to move into a community. The secondary thing that people use is the “look and feel” of the community, and since Longmeadow has a lot of young families with children, out and about, it also “feels” like a good community to most people.
I’m not quite sure why they are near their levy ceiling; I don’t get the sense that they massively overspend on things. They don’t even have curbside trash pickup. I suspect that they are getting hit because they just built a new high school, and since they are a wealthy community, had to pick up over 50% of the cost. The school cost the town $44 million (the state picked up $34.4m) and the school has 957 students.
Another issue may be that Longmeadow has long been built-out, residentially, so it doesn’t have the cushion of new development tax levy coming in year after year.
It creates a conundrum for the community, of course. If they hit the levy ceiling next year, they will need to cut things, and they can really only cut the schools. When they cut the schools, that will dampen demand for the community, and could set off a downward spiral of property decreases which force cuts which cause property decreases.
That should show the absurdity of the levy ceiling. Longmeadow should be able to vote to raise revenue from itself beyond an arbitrary number; it should not be forced to take a path of decline – like Springfield was, back in 1980.
in addition to a drop off station.
I think it was the new school that drove the tax increase. And you’re right, I think they had $125,000 in new construction last year. Granby has 7 or 8 times as much every year.
1. Pro-tenant regulations would normally be supported by progressives but here you see they are hindering the creation of better low income housing.
2. Cities have become the “junk drawer” for all sorts of facilities that house or treat the less desirable elements- hardly a recipe for success.
3. You’d don’t say it explicitly, but it’s implied- cities have too high a proportion of property which is not taxable.
4. When people with kids look at housing, schools are the #1 factor if they have a choice.
5. There’s not a sharing of the costs- the state mandates, but doesn’t pay. Note that this is a problem everywhere. If a town does special ed well, the town gets an influx of these students and then an unfair burden is placed on the town. In the case of the cities, this population is more likely to have issues, so the city gets both poor AND needy.
Suburban NIMBY liberals are definitely part of the problem, but they could be part of the solution as well if they understood that affordable housing actually helps their communities become more diverse, more interesting places to live, and more stabilized. And that their kids will test better. Considering how sacred METCO is there is a odd disconnect between allowing greater economic and racial diversity in education but opposing it for housing.
Although many towns vote Democratic, they are much less socially liberal than you give them credit for.
Outside of the more liberal bastions like Amherst or Cambridge, Massachusetts is incredibly highly racially segregated. Ridiculously so, in some cases. Here are the populations of white students in the towns nearby Springfield/Chicopee/Holyoke – the cities that contain the bulk of the non-white population in the Pioneer Valley:
Agawam: 86.5% white, 1.8% black, 6.7% Hispanic, 2.5% Asian
Southwick/Tolland/Granville: 91.9% white, 2.1% black, 3.6% Hispanic, 0.9% Asian
Longmeadow: 81.1% white, 2.1% black, 4.2% Hispanic, 9.3% Asian
East Longmeadow: 85.6% white, 2.5% black, 5.1% Hispanic, 5.0% Asian
Hampden/Wilbraham: 86.0% white, 2.6% black, 5.4% Hispanic, 2.6% Asian
Monson: 93.6% white, 0.7% black, 2.4% Hispanic, 0.9% Asian
Palmer: 84.4% white, 2.3% black, 7.6% Hispanic, 1.9% Asian
Belchertown: 90.2% white, 1.7% black, 3.7% Hispanic, 2.0% Asian
Ludlow: 86.4% white, 1.9% black, 8.4% Hispanic, 0.4% Asian
Granby: 89.3% white, 0.4% black (0 in K-8), 5.6% Hispanic, 2.6% Asian
South Hadley: 83.9% white, 2.1% black, 10.3% Hispanic, 1.3% Asian
Northampton (city that takes pride in its liberalism): 70.2% white, 2.7% black, 17.2% Hispanic, 3.9% Asian
Easthampton: 83.0% white, 1.7% black, 9.7% Hispanic, 3.7% Asian
Southhampton: 89.2% white, 0.8% black, 4.6% Hispanic, 2.1% Asian
Westfield (city): 81.2% white, 2.2% black, 11.8% Hispanic, 2.7% Asian
West Springfield (city): 70.8% white, 3.5% black, 16.4% Hispanic, 6.5% Asian
Chicopee: 57.2% white, 3.0% black, 34.9% Hispanic, 2.0% Asian
Holyoke: 15.7% white, 2.9% black, 79.3% Hispanic, 0.8% Asian
Springfield: 12.3% white, 19.4% black, 64.5% Hispanic, 2.5% Asian
The segregation should be really obvious. One other thing to note is that there are a number of charter schools in the region, and they are heavily segregated themselves. For example:
Springfield
Veritas: 6.8% white, 23.1% black, 66.4% Hispanic, 1.3% Asian
MLK: 1.6% white, 46.4% black, 45.1% Hispanic, 1.1% Asian
Baystate: 5.9% white, 31% black, 61.4% Hispanic, 1.0% Asian
SABIS: 24.9% white, 29.2% black, 37.1% Hispanic, 3.9% Asian
Springfield Preparatory: 4.6% white, 16.7% black, 72.2% Hispanic, 1.9% Asian
Phoenix Academy: 6.5% white, 23.5% black, 65.9% Hispanic, 1.2% Asian
Chicopee:
Hampden School of Science: 44.4% white, 20.9% black, 28.5% Hispanic, 32% Asian
Holyoke
Paulo Friere: 7.3% white, 4.5% black, 87.9% Hispanic, 0% Asian
Holyoke Community: 5.8% white, 1.7% black, 90.1% Hispanic, 0.4% Asian
Hadley
Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion: 56.3% white, 4.6% black, 7.1% Hispanic, 18.2% Asian
South Hadley
Pioneer Valley Performing Arts: 69.7% white, 7.4% black, 12.2% Hispanic, 2.5% Asian
It is interesting that the charter schools are also heavily segregated, perhaps reflecting the fact that it is somewhat hard for a student in Springfield to attend a charter school in Hadley or South Hadley since transportation is not provided. It is amazing that the Holyoke Community Charter school is over 90% Hispanic. Maybe the charters are sending “signals” (when you name your charter MLK, you’re probably not going to get many white students applying); maybe people will, if left to themselves, self-segregate to various degrees.
As a white person, I do know many people who openly discuss school race issues with me, with the racial balance being a factor in whether they find a school good or not. I know that the presumption is that a school with too many non-whites is never considered “good” – even if their numbers are good, people presume that they are just cheating.
We have almost no rental housing. In the last 5 years, the state added 12 units of affordable housing that we invited 20 years before.
We are a frequent destination for working-class people moving out of the cities. We have no public transportation. (We did have bus service, but only 1 person was using it). We still have a net gain in school choice, but we are experiencing a significant outflow due to problems with administration, failing buildings, and people wanting to send their kids to what they consider better schools.
Our tax base is such that it takes a 1% tax increase to raise $100,000, a dollar figure that could be spent on a single-special needs student.
Springfield’s Levy Ceiling is currently $181,910,553.
Springfield’s Foundation Budget (the minimum it is legally required to spend) is currently $345,592,031
$181.9m that we can legally collect, $345.6m that we must legally spend on our schools (ignoring all other municipal functions).
That should illustrate the massive problem we have.
My understanding of the history of BMG is that it was created AFTER the 2004 election in reaction to the Kerry loss, so I don’t think you can say what attitudes on “this site” were then.
But I have been around a long time, and I think he right about that attitude.
I am not sure what a solution would be. It is certainly the case that municipalities caught in this sort of death-spiral rarely seem to have a healthy or helpful local political response. Hence, the use of receivership.
The answer in Flint may be to Love Canal it.